MAP

Saturday, 14 June 2014

Let’s just
casually look at this image of a galaxy 86 million light-years away from us. In
the center of this incredible image is a bright loop that you can see
surrounding the heart of the galaxy. That is where stars are being born, say
the scientists behind this new Hubble Space Telescope image. “Compared to other
spiral galaxies, it looks a little different,” NASA stated. “The galaxy’s
barred spiral center is surrounded by a bright loop known as a resonance ring.
This ring is full of bright clusters and bursts of new star formation, and
frames the supermassive black hole thought
to be lurking within NGC 3081 — which glows brightly as it hungrily gobbles up
in-falling material.”

A “resonance ring” refers to an area where gravity
causes gas to stick around in certain areas, and can be the result of a ring
(like you see in NGC 3081) or close-by objects with a lot of gravity.
Scientists added that NGC 3081, which is in the constellation Hydra or the Sea
Serpent, is just one of many examples of barred galaxies with this type of
resonance.

By the way, this image is a combination of several types
of light: optical, infrared and ultraviolet.